Guest Post: Boricua Freedom Writer Speaks

I am very happy to welcome fellow Borinqueña, Norma Burgos to The Writing Life Blog. I hope you will enjoy Norma’s heartfelt and informative piece on what is most dear to Puerto Ricans–our homeland–la Isla del Encanto. Parts 2 and 3 will be posted during the next two weeks, so please check in again.

Norma Burgos Vázquez is a DiaspoRican returnee residing in Puerto Rico since 1999. The forty-year veteran of the wars on poverty in NY, the SF/Bay Area and Comunidades Especiales (PR) has worked for federal, state and municipal island governments. She’s a Writer’s Well Literary Competition Winner, former public affairs writer at KCBS News Radio (SF), and her personal vignettes and essays appear in The Rebeldes Anthology: Bolder (e-book), Border-Lines Journal, Latino Research Center, La Respuesta, Mujeres Talk, Latina Lista News, Somos Primos. The Bronx Science alumna, holds a BA in Black and Puerto Rican Studies, Hunter College (NYC) and education courses, Universidad Interamericana, Guayama. She currently lives in Vega Alta with her daughter where she is retired and editing her first back-to-roots memoir.

Give Us Our Mandela Moment: Free Oscar Now! So the World Can Witness ‘Invictus’ of Puerto Ricans by the Power of One

“If I am standing here today, it is not because I lack the courage to fight, but rather because I have the courage to fight. I am certain, and will reaffirm, that Puerto Rico will be a free and sovereign nation.”

– Oscar López Rivera, at his trial for seditious conspiracy, 1981

Every year, for 35 years, on May 29th, the face of “The Last Prisoner” has symbolized “Unity” in the ongoing struggle to liberate the last colony standing of the Americas, before the world community of free sovereign nations, on the floor of the United Nations. That, sadly, has been a painful reminder, much as, an army of compatriotas and worldwide supporters, 5 Nobel Peace Prize winners among them, UN delegates, illustrious journalists, scholars, lawmakers, celebrities, athletes, civic leaders and human rights and legal advocates of the Free Oscar Campaign, have been relentless in demanding his presidential pardon and release, Puerto Rico’s National Hero Oscar López Rivera, the victim of a miscarriage of (Empire) justice, still remains behind bars. At 73 years of age, his yearning for his homeland in the letter “Where the Sea Breathes,” written from prison to Karina, his granddaughter (he’s only seen through iron bars) is a heart-wrenching sign of the urgenthumanitarian imperative to bring Oscar home, sooner than later:

“…It has been 35 years since the last time I saw it. But I have painted it many times, both the Atlantic and the Caribbean, the smiling foam in Cabo Rojo, which is made of light mixed with salt…Here in prison I have often felt nostalgic for the sea; filling my lungs with its smell; touching it and wetting my lips, but right away I realize that many years may have to pass before I can give myself that simple pleasure… I always miss the sea, but I think I never needed it as much as when they transferred me from Marion prison in Illinois, to Florence, in Colorado. In Marion, I went out into the yard once a week, and from there I could see the trees, the birds… I heard the sounds of the train and the song of the cicadas. I would run over the earth and smell it. I could grab the grass and let the butterflies surround me. But in Florence all that came to an end… Did you know that ADX, which is the maximum-security prison in Florence, is designed for the worst criminals in the United States and is considered the hardest and most impenetrable in the country? There the prisoners have no contact with each other, it’s a labyrinth of steel and concrete built to isolate and incapacitate. I was among the first men in this prison (…) (source:Global Voices) read more

In the days leading up to the final Congressional approval of the PROMESA Act (HR 5278) on June 29, 2016 that purports to “rescue” Puerto Rico from total economic collapse, and falls dismally short of island expectations, analyzed the locally-vested Center for a New Economy. position paper As I was writing this blog, deeply disturbed by the catastrophic prognosis: that our beloved Borinquen is a dying colonial nation hooked to US life support, La Junta-Fiscal Control Board of the Republican Congress would administer lethal austerity transfusions, I marveled that Oscar Rivera, the political prisoner for far too long, was in the eye of the Perfect Storm of anti-colonial forces and island and Diaspora events that would vindicate him before the entire world.

And it all happened between the dates May 27 (my birthday) and June 29, 2016. These fast-moving chain of events compelled me to put my life on pause, to document, eat, sleep and pray the night away. Inspired, as I was, to capture the living history unfolding at my laptop. To share with my readers this cruel dichotomy, how it feels to be, at once, a “colonized subject” and an American born in the USA, on the receiving end of the Anglo Supremacist message: Puerto Ricans are incapable of governing themselves, as if the US government had no culpability whatsoever in the debt crisis debacle, and could get away with blaming the victim, for being the victim of colonial abuse.
Not while journalist educator Ed Morales is on the case, breaking down the debt crisis en arroz y habichuelas. America’s colony was set up to fail by the very hand that feeds us: YouTube.

Adding insult to injury, on the day the US Congressional House Speaker Paul Ryan reaches PROMESA bill bipartisan approval, the US Department of Natural Resources, that profits from total jurisdiction over Puerto Rico’s national treasures, posts a racist and offensive tweet that ridicules and humiliates Puerto Ricans online, reported Caribbean Business News. read more
Now, I’m no political pundit. I’m a chronicler of events on a quest to make well-informed decisions about Puerto Rico’s future. Your everyday news junkie hooked on CNN, ABC, Univision, Telenoticias, El Nuevo Dia, Primera Hora, NotiUno Radio, the weekly local newspaper regionals (and even, the pro-statehood propagandist freebie, El Vocero daily). The various blogs worth reading of progressive-thinking and like-minded individuals of good conscience. I’m also an avid follower of NiLP National Institute for Latino Policy in New York. And, as of 2014, I am connected to the San Juan-based DiaspoRicans l DiaspoRiqueños network that’s a Who’s Who in the Puerto Rican progressive movement. In essence, the view (for the wizened me) is a split screen of happenings, both here and there.

The United States of America is trampling on the human rights and collective pride of our Puerto Rican people, “El Orgullo Boricua.” The immense pride we all share in our long trajectory of notable achievements. Harnessing the exceptional talent, capability, creativity, ingenuity, generosity, dignity and humanitarian passionthat originates from a tiny Caribbean island in the center of God’s green earth and is a force of nature in the world. read here.

Yet…we have been brought to our knees.

“El Orgullo Boricua”

Boricuas have climbed the steepest steps to the highest court in the land in the person of the Honorable Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, born and raised in the Bronx. We have flown on the NASA Discovery Space Shuttle and walked in Space with the daring astronaut Joseph M. Acabá, from Inglewood, California. We have had the first Latino to serve as Surgeon General of the USA in Dr. Antonia Coello Novello, born in Fajardo, Puerto Rico. Produced the most beautiful women in the world (second to Venezuela) boasting five (5) winners in the history of the “Miss Universe” Pageant, and the People Magazine “Most Beautiful Woman in the World” distinction bestowed upon Jennifer López, the diva from the Bronx. We have fought America’s battles in the Borinqueneers65th Infantry, President Obama decorated with the Congressional Gold Medal for bravery. We can win MVPs sports championships, Presidential Medals of Honor and Freedom, Oscars, Tonys and Grammys, rise to the top of the music charts and crossover; show theatrical, literary, philosophical, environmental, business, hi-tech and STEM scientific genius; lead armies, set laws in Congress, rise out of poverty and rise to the exalted status of Sainthood in the Vatican (which is no walk in the park). And have recently taken Broadway by storm in the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Hamilton” sensation Lin Manuel Miranda.

And STILL…Puerto Ricans get no respect from the US Congress, the US Supreme Court or the US Executive Branch, for that matter.

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Eleanor Parker Sapia

Puerto Rican-born, Eleanor Parker Sapia is the author of the award-winning, historical novel, A DECENT WOMAN, published by Sixth Street River Press. The book is a Finalist in the 2016 International Latino Book Award with Latino Literacy Now, and was Book of the Month with Las Comadres and Friends National Latino Book Club. She is featured in the award-winning anthology, Latino Authors and Their Muses, edited by Mayra Calvani.
Eleanor is a writer, artist, photographer, and blogger, who is never without a pen, notebook, and her camera. Her wonderful adult children are doing wonderful things in the world, which allows Eleanor the blessing of writing full time.
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Please visit Eleanor at her website: http://www.eleanorparkersapia.com
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